Be a Better Cofounder – Christopher Wink

Measure What Matters: a book on setting goals and hitting them

Set an objective and guide your progress with key results.

It’s the main guidance of a long-popular management framework that was effectively outlined in the 2018 book Measure What Matters: How Google, Bono, and the Gates Foundation Rock the World with OKRs written by legendary venture capitalist John Doerr, who has long championed the process. My company began testing the framework in late 2020, as the pandemic necessitated new organizing principles, and I read the book last year.

In short, OKRs, or Objectives and Key Results, is a goal-setting method that involves setting clear and measurable objectives and tracking progress towards them using quantifiable metrics. The goal of OKRs is to focus an organization’s efforts and ensure that everyone is working towards the same objectives.

They are designed to be challenging, but achievable, and should be reviewed and updated regularly to ensure they are still relevant. OKRs were developed by Intel in the 1970s and have been used by companies like Google and Bono to drive success. The effectiveness of OKRs comes from their clear framework for setting and achieving goals, their encouragement of collaboration and communication within an organization, and the regular review and update process that ensures they remain relevant.

To implement OKRs successfully, it’s important to tie them to strategy, provide feedback and recognition, and be transparent about them. It’s also important for OKRs to be seen as important at every employee level and for them to represent the majority of an organization’s work. Managers should be aware of what excites their direct reports, what they want to change, what skills they want to add for career growth, and what is blocking progress on OKRs. It’s also important to have a mix of committed and stretch goals and to use all team meetings to address OKRs.

Below I have my notes from the book.

Little ways an organizational leader can show her team she cares about them as people

Pay them a competitive salary. Protect against mission and role creep. Give something clear to work toward and a strategy to employ to get there.

As an organizational leader, these are the foundations of developing a healthy relationship with your workforce. I’ve found there are other signs of an empathetic organizational culture that you can develop, without excessive budget needs.

These are examples of ways to show your team that you actually care about them as people. It goes a long way to develop the relationships you need to take on a big challenge, particularly without a pile of money.

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3 simple ideas for thriving in an open office

You can find a lot of solid advice for surviving the open office.

The historical arc of offices is richly told. Despite the criticism they get, I’m fond of them, over many offices or more established cubicles. Someone recently asked me for advice, and I found I had three quick answers that I stand by.

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Start with the doing. Then get to the done

Big goals can inspire. They can also paralyze.

One of the best outcomes from building the habit of building habits is having a skill to make big change. If you want to stop always being late. If you want to be a better public speaker. If you want to drive your company to new heights.

Once you identify the obstacles, these all are essentially tasks of building habits. But we often stare down the end of an enormous project and are so intimidated we never start. That happens to me a lot. So I remind myself that it all comes down to an incredibly simple act: just get started.

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How to show growth for employees at a small organization

If you are a small company without a lot of turnover or new positions how do you make people feel that there is room for growth at your company?: We built out structured levels with half-steps and (over time) relatively clear definitions, and I’ve found our employees have appreciated that transparency and clarity. We have a Coordinator, Manager and Director structure, with just two C-levels and one VP, all of whom are senior and been with the company for a while. I’ve been mindful to avoid bloat (which I don’t think we always got right and made some mistakes there) but we do have clear ways for folks to grow. ie. Our more junior Coordinators first strive to oversee a department’s intern; our Managers tend to oversee a full-time Coordinator or at least a meaningful budget; and our few Directors lead a small team (2-3 people). (We have used the “Senior” title as a half-step, like Senior Manager or Senior Director ,to show growth)
How do you give promotions? Is it based on time (you’ve been here a year), responsibilities (you’ve taken on a new project) or something else (your boss is leaving)? One of the early successes that has really helped was that, with rare exception, only do promotions/salary growth two-times a year: aligned with twice-annual performance reviews. This has given structure and over time our staff really latch on to that cadence. One of the performance review questions includes a chance for teammates to call out what kind of growth they want
Do you wait until someone asks for a promotion, or are you clear upfront about what the next move is and when it could happen? For teammates I really want to retain, I often talk openly in their performance review check points about ways they might grow; projects and positions. Other teammates themselves voice, having seen how this works over time.
Do they have to add value (revenue) to warrant a promotion? Yes, most usually, we do discuss how their growth impacts the business, even for editorial. For example, we recently did a big internal promotion to a relatively junior editor of ours who worked on a smaller project exactly because she had been clever and very supportive of a newsletter subscriber growth strategy (which if not directly does indirectly tie to business goals). Our staff has grown pretty savvy in articulating how their work supports business goals. The performance reviews are good tools here: each six months a staff member is given a set of high-level priorities. Many excel at working toward them.
Do you give raises with promotions? Which do you find more motivating for people–promotions or raises? We always give raises with promotions. As a small local journalism org, for non-editorial roles, we haven’t always been competitive (though we’re getting better). Showing steady (if modest) salary growth year-over-year (even without promotions, we’ve usually outpaced COLA, which is easier in these low inflation years) has been important but the pathway for career growth has definitely meant a lot to many of our (best) teammates. I never judge teammates who really value salary growth, I’ve just tried to be upfront that I might not be able to meet those expectations longterm. This has been healthy.
Do you work with employees to create their growth plans? How does that process work? Yes, very tied to performance reviews. The aforementioned junior editor early in her time with us (four year employee) identified that she wanted a pathway to be a newsroom leader, more as editor than reporter. She is an excellent teammate so we kept finding opportunities for her professional development, which helped when the internal promotion opportunity came. She was less experienced than our external candidates but since it was part of a longterm conversation, we had de-risked so much with her that it proved an easy decision for me. That only happened because we had an open dialogue about her wants. Other staff members haven’t had as clear a personal journey (which is OK), but then I’ve likely not hit all their longterm plans.

Lessons on “The Messy Middle” of business from Scott Belsky

You know startups. You know exits.

Most of the work of business takes place somewhere in between the very start and the very end. Yet a lot of media attention focuses on those two iconic poles. So you might know a lot less about the space between the two poles.

We need more guidance on the work stage. That’s the approach in The Messy Middle, a new book published late last year from Scott Belsky. He founded Behance, which sold in 2012 to Adobe for $150 million, and has been an active investor.

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This is a better question for getting perspective to make a decision

I’ve started to replace a common question with something a bit different.

I love making decisions informed by consensus. As I’ve gotten older and taken on different roles, I’ve made it a point to be more decisive and clear in being responsible for the final decision. But perhaps from my journalism roots, I commonly want to get other people’s opinions on a matter.

It’s important to understand their vantage point: in a leadership function, you are responsible for having a wider understanding of a situation. But with the right balance, knowing more focused opinions are crucial.

But I think there’s a better question than simply: “what’s your opinion on this?”

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Don’t be the ‘idea guy’

When you say you’re the “idea guy,” I really hear you saying you’re the “I don’t wanna do any real work guy.”

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You’re going to get criticized. Learn when to listen.

One effective way to divide the kind of criticism you’ll get for your work is to split the feedback between that which comes from someone who has done the work you’re doing and that which comes from someone else.

It doesn’t necessarily mean one category will always be effective or helpful or productive or not. Those are further distinctions. But when I’m receiving critical feedback — on something I’ve written or presented or shared — often the first check I make is that one.

Continue reading You’re going to get criticized. Learn when to listen.